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Linguis Europae is dedicated to a range of topics involving official state, regional, and minority languages in the EU. Posts are written in five languages by UI students and faculty! Check back regularly for updates!

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Monday, January 23, 2017

Understanding the French Who Refuse to Speak EnglishBy Raphaela BerdingRaphaela Berding is a second year graduate student in European Union Studies. Her interests are in sociology, and she plans to complete a PhD in this field. Her research focuses on European culture and identity. She is from Germany and received her Bachelor’s degree in Multilingual Communication and Translational Studies. Berding has made her entry available in English and German as well.

Most non-French speaking travelers who have visited France might have experienced that some French do not answer in English when tourists ask them for directions. Since the overall attitude in France towards English is that it is “the most desirable language to possess in one’s linguistic repertoire” (Costa and Lambert 2009, 19), one can assume that these French might not have sufficient knowledge of English, and that it is not part of the French curriculum. However, this is not the case. In the French education system, English is the dominant foreign language (21) and in 2008, the former Minister of Education declared that he wanted every student to become bilingual in English (19). Furthermore, English is studied by the majority of students, and their number is increasing (20). So at least the younger generation should have sufficient knowledge of English to be able to give directions to an American tourist. Hence, there must be another reason for the French attitude towards English, and this might be the pride of their own language.
Could it be an exaggerated pride? French used to be a “prestige lingua franca for centuries” (Wright 2006, 35) which is why one might think it is legitimate for the French to be so proud of their language. Even though French is said to be an easy language to learn for English speakers (Knowlton 2014), it has its difficulties, and particularities even in the graphic level, like accents, ligatures and special characters.

Throughout the francophone world it is not an unusual claim that French has “special qualities” (Wright 2006, 35). It seems that the French want the world to pay attention to these special qualities and their language again. In 2014, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development published the “Promoting French Worldwide” strategy (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development 2014). Also, recently the French culture ministry has called for the creation of a new keyboard that would make it easier to use the special characters making the French language so unique (Breeden 2016). Indeed, some characters like the cedilla (ç) or ligatures (æ or œ) do not have dedicated keys and have to be inserted by complex keyboard shortcuts.

But why are the French so concerned about their language and its spread? Is this attitude a legacy of their colonial power? And why are they so much more reserved about the promotion of linguistic diversity than other European countries, even though, according to Wright (2006), the French elite claims that plurilingualism is “necessary for healthy international development”? (50)

In order to understand the French attitude towards their language it is helpful to look at the history of France. We can observe a loss of power and influence after France dominated in political, economic, cultural, technological, and ideological areas in the 17th and 18th centuries, and people therefore wanted or needed to learn French because it was useful and profitable for them (Wright 38). Furthermore we can see a passing of several laws to protect the French language internally (Costa and Lambert 2009)

In 1539, French became the official language in administration areas throughout the kingdom of France (Costa and Lambert 2009, 16-17). Later, under the rein of Louis XIV, France expanded its territory both in the Spanish and German-speaking world, and with the territorial expansion came the language expansion (Wright 2006, 37). French was declared to be used in negotiations and even replaced Latin as the written language of diplomacy (ibid.). At the same time, Paris was the major cultural and scientific center of Europe, and thereby produced more reasons for people to learn French (ibid. 37-38).

All of this changed during the 19th century and France’s position on the continent was challenged, mainly by Germany, which was economically and militarily strong, Britain, which was a strong imperial power, and the United Stated, whose influence grew (ibid. 38-39). With the decreasing influence of France, also the French language lost its prestige. Hence, French was accompanied by English as a medium of discussion in the negotiations of the treaties after World War I, and even eliminated as a language in the negotiations after World War II (ibid. 39). Internally however, the Jules Ferry school laws from 1882 excluded any other language than French (Costa and Lambert 2009, 18), showing the rising concern of the French about the influence of their language.

The legacy of the decreasing influence of French in the 19th century after it was flourishing in 17th and 18th century might be part of the reason why some French nowadays refuse to speak in English. They are insecure about their, and jealous the other language and want to show the world that their nation is not giving in to the dominance and temptation of speaking English. They probably hold on to their Golden Age, to the time when French was the dominant language in Europe, and everybody wanted to learn it.

In the end, the evidence presented might indeed give the impression that some French refuse to speak English to prove people thinking the French influence is declining, wrong. However, another aspect that is worth mentioning, and might explain the attitude of French towards English, is that the French law has traditionally supported this special attitude and linguistic ideology in France. The Loi Toubon from 1994, a law relating to the usage of the French language, mandates that French is used as the “language of instruction, examinations and competitive examinations, as well as theses and dissertations in State and private educational institutions.” (Wright 2006, 51) This reminds of the Jules Ferry laws from 1882. From this derive two conclusions. First, the French are not using English, namely because they are afraid of making mistakes while speaking it because they don’t know how to because the French law prohibits the use of English once the student graduate from high school. So instead of speaking broken English they rather pretend not to know English at all. Second, it shows that the attitudes presented are mainly institutional and come from the conservative population. Costa and Lambert (2009) point out that “language policy is a manipulative tool in the continuous battle between different ideologies” (16). As Wright (2006) explains, the French people “are aware […] that to reject English means to stay outside the global forums […] and this is a sacrifice they do not appear to be willing to make to pursue a national language policy.” (54) In other words, the French people are open to use English, but it is mainly the mainstream policy makers do not want to accept initiatives that involve approaches to plurilingualism (Costa and Lambert 2009, 24).